Up until recently I spent a huge amount of time sitting in my car. Sometimes up to 30 hours a week encased in a tin can with wheels barely going faster than most able-bodied 80 year olds. It sounds kinda crazy when you think about it, but a three hour journey (into and out of work) became normal to me. After one year of doing the same monotonous commute I began to wonder what effect this was having on my consciousness and (of course) was it worth taking this journey in the first place? I swear to god! I’d arrive into the office like a zombie, I probably behaved like a zombie, and I came home like a zombie.

Anyway I shot this short video to give you an idea of what it was like…

Recently I’ve been getting a lot of hits from people searching for Anthony de Mello content so I’ve decided to create a separate blog dedicated de Mello information and media. Hopefully it’ll act as a kind of one-stop-shop, as currently there isn’t very much web presence on this very interesting man.

I took this short video on my little Cannon camera when on holiday in Spain last month. I had actually forgotten all about it (the video not the holiday) till I checked my photo library the other day. Myself and my girlfriend were in Estepona drinking iced mochachinos by the beach when she suggested we visit some friends of hers in Granada. I was all on for it till I was informed that Granada was a two hour drive away. To be honest I would have been happy to chill by the coast for the next few days with the cool sea breeze in my hair and not have to think about moving anywhere further than the local Supermercados. But considering I dragged her halfway across southern Spain to a disused water park I figured I kinda owed her one.

I was really blown away by Granada and the surrounding countryside. The spirit of the flamenco is literally pulsating out of the earth. From the metropolitan business district right up to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains this part of Spain speaks an ancient language which is hard to define in words. On our last night there we were invited up into the caves where for generations, gypsies have been playing listening and dancing to flamenco music. This is where I shot this video.

I recently came accross these three talks done by Anthony de Mello. The hairstyles are a bit freaky and the set is like something out of 1980’s TV gameshow, but these talks are dynamite. De Mello certainly has the gift of the gab and comes accross with the same wit, cool, and calm as any of today’s primetime presenters. As always, he is razor sharp, entertaining, and straight to the point. Don’t let the titles put you off. Check these out now!

Time is an amazing thing. We talk about time all the time. We measure it, sell it, store it, buy it, burn it, save it, fight it. Our lives lives are run on time, dictated by dates and figures. We are reminded of time almost everywhere; on our desktops, in the street, on our phones, by dates, by the weather, by the stars, and by the sea and of course by clocks. My digital watch tells the time pretty accurately. It breaks time down to tiny little fractions in all kinds of different geographical zones. We have different flavors of time. We have time to suit every occasion, every country, every task.

I have one major problem with time; I’ve never touched it, I don’t know what it looks like, I don’t really know what it feels like, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if it actually exists. One thing I’m certain of is, the past does not exist and it never did exist. Currently and always the past is nothing more than memory. Chemicals stored in the brain. Just like ones and zeros in a computer or the smell a freshly baked bread. It’s not really bread, it’s a scent. The future is exactly the same as the past. It’s not reality, we never ever get there, and it’s no more than a fantasy or dream.

So all we actually have is the present which kinda eliminates the need for a clock or calendar. How about a watch that simply displays “NOW”? Or a calendar that has “The Present” printed on twelve separate pages?

Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, photojournalist James Nachtwey talks about his decades as a war photographer. A slideshow of his photos, beginning in 1981 in Northern Ireland, reveal two parallel themes in his work. First, as he says: “The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live.” Street violence, famine, disease: he has photographed all these modern WMDs. Second, when a photo catches the world’s attention, it can truly drive action and change. In his TED wish, he asks for help gaining access to a story that needs to be told, and developing a new, digital way to show these photos to the world.

Last Tuesday morning like so many mornings, I dragged my sleepy head out of bed at 05:30 to face yet another monotonous mind numbing day at the IT sweatshop. I quickly checked my emails and news headlines to see if I has missed any major global catastrophe or if I had inadvertently slept for four weeks straight (a la 28 Days Later). Unfortunately nothing major had happened while I was asleep and there were no obvious signs of any zombies in the Laois area, which basically meant I had no plausible excuse not to go to work. I did get an intriguing email from a good friend of mine. Donal who often sends me random off-beat, thought provoking, and sometimes incomprehensible links had given me exactly what I needed to hear.

A very simple message weaved by the creators of Southpark in a Flash animation and based on recordings done by the philosopher Alan Watts. I headed off into the early morning commute with a new sense of hope.

Are You Sleepwalking?

Imagine that you’re unwell and in a foul mood, and they’re taking you through some lovely countryside. The landscape is beautiful but you’re not in the mood to see anything. A few days later you pass the same place and you say, “Good heavens, where was I that I didn’t notice all of this?” Everything becomes beautiful when you change. Or you look at the trees and the mountains through windows that are wet with rain from a storm, and everything looks blurred and shapeless. You want to go right out there and change those trees, change those mountains. Wait a minute, let’s examine your window. When the storm ceases and the rain stops, and you look out the window, you say, “Well, how different everything looks.” We see people and things not as they are, but as we are. That is why when two people look at something or someone, you get two different reactions. We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.

Remember that sentence from scripture about everything turning into good for those who love God? When you finally awake, you don’t try to make good things happen; they just happen. You understand suddenly that everything that happens to you is good. Think of some people you’re living with whom you want to change. You find them moody, inconsiderate, unreliable, treacherous, or whatever. But when you are different, they’ll be different. That’s an infallible and miraculous cure. The day you are different, they will become different. And you will see them differently, too. Someone who seemed terrifying will now seem frightened. Someone who seemed rude will seem frightened. All of a sudden, no one has the power to hurt you anymore. No one has the power to put pressure on you. It’s something like this: You leave a book on the table and I pick it up and say, “You’re pressing this book on me. I have to pick it up or not pick it up.” People are so busy accusing everyone else, blaming everyone else, blaming life, blaming society, blaming their neighbor. You’ll never change that way; you’ll continue in your nightmare, you’ll never wake up.

Put this program into action, a thousand times:

(a) identify the negative feelings in you;

(b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality;

(c) do not see them as an essential part of “I”; these things come and go;

(d) understand that when you change, everything changes

These are various quotes taken from the author and sometimes Jesuit priest Anthony DeMello. I first came across this intriguing man a couple of years ago, when a friend of mine lent one of his books titled Awareness. I’ve been struck my a few things in my time; a pain in my ass, an irate bouncer, an angry monkey, and even once by a sense of wellbeing, but reading this book was the closest thing I’ve had to being struck by a spiritual experience. Thankfully for me it was a short easy read, and the font was nice and big (no pictures though). I’m not going to detail or offer my opinion on this book. I’m in no way religious. I have no interest in imposing my beliefs or faith on anyone. All I would like to do is share something. Make of it what you will. Develop your own opinion / belief / faith / understanding. Be open to examine and challenge everything. Make of it what you will.